Dystorpia, our new digital distortion pedal
Make space on your pedalboard, Noise Engineering has entered the world of pedal effects!
We are so excited to bring you Dystorpia, our very first pedal. Today’s post is all about what it does and why we did it. Hold on, we have some cool surprises ahead!
What is Dystorpia?
Dystorpia is a digital future fuzz pedal, but it’s like no distortion on your pedal board. Rather than clone an existing pedal, we spent years refining a variety of algorithms that are largely unique to the pedal world.
Let’s start simple: the Gain knob can be turned up for a basic overdrive. But Dystorpia’s unique Blend knob applies some mild saturation to the dry signal as the knob is turned up, allowing the dry signal to mesh better with the affected signal. Chord information and articulation are retained, but the signal mixes in with the affected signal without sounding like a separate clean guitar track. As soon as we tested this idea we were immediately happy with the results and think you will be too.
The two distinct distortion controls are at the heart of Dystorpia’s sound: Fold and Pura. Influenced by our synth background, Fold and Pura distortions are designed with the more dynamic tonalities of guitars. Fold controls a wavefolder that creates a gritty, growly texture. Pura is a full-wave rectifier that adds intense overtones and a grinding distortion.
We also spent a lot of time thinking about tone control and how tone interacts with the distortions. Tonality is controlled by two knobs: the Mid Band sets…the mid-band frequency while Tone sets the basic tone, from bassy to high. At the top, Tone boosts lows again for a mid-scooped effect. The expression input maps to Tone, so Dystorpia can make some pretty cool wah-like sounds. We like the tone control so much that we opted to make it post-blend: the tone controls will affect any wet or dry signal as long as the pedal is engaged. So even if blend is all the way down, you can adjust the tone of your dry signal!
Another feature we are excited to offer is the noise suppression and dynamic options the Envelope switch delivers. The Dyn setting adjusts the output level to follow the clean input level. This allows for dynamic playing while retaining whatever tonality you have dialed in. The Gate setting acts as a smart noise gate by drastically lowering the output level when there is no input signal. Gate allows for more sustain than Dyn does, but fades out without any pedal noise at the tail. This is great for recording and live situations. Don’t want either of these? Just switch the Env to Off.
To top off the sound options, or as the case may be, take the sound over the edge, the Doom switch adds in lower-octave harmonics. To the left it’s off, in the middle position lower octave harmonics are added, and to the right, in the Blown Sub setting, the lower octave harmonics dominate the tone.
Another unique feature Dystorpia offers is a built-in Freeze control. Freeze will sustain a short loop of whatever you last played. Quick tap to latch and unlatch, or hold down for momentary-style behavior. We love it for holding a chord or note through a breakdown or special section of a song.
You can also set-and-forget the output gain of Dystorpia by holding down the Freeze footswitch and turning the Gain knob. If you are someone who wants the pedal to be the same volume as your bypassed level, or someone who wants a volume boost when engaging the pedal, either can be achieved by setting the output gain.
Sooooo is Dystorpia meant for guitars or for synths?
Yes!
No really. When we decided to move into the pedal world, we spent a lot of time playing with guitars to understand how a guitar signal differs from a synth signal. Turns out that what works on synths directly didn’t really fit the sound we were going for, so we started from scratch. That means that every bit of the firmware in this pedal was tailored to sound great on a guitar and bass (and that there is no shared code with any of our synth products!).
Only once we were happy with the way Dystorpia sounded on guitar, we turned our attention to synths…and once we stopped patting ourselves on the back for the utter destruction it brought to the table, we started trying other things: drums, keytar, theremin, you name it. And it was good.
So Dystorpia really is made for anyone looking for a novel distortion, no matter what you play. And if you are more of a CV person than an expression pedal person, feel free to use that on the expression input!
Why did Noise Engineering decide to make guitar pedals?
We got into pedals for a few reasons. One was that it was just something Stephen had been wanting to do for a long time. The second is that it was a new an interesting challenge for us, and we wanted something challenging. We succeeded there: the seed of Dystorpia started in maybe 2020? Some products are smooth and come out in a few months from conception. Some do not (see also: our mixer, Xer Mixa, that has existed as a concept longer than we have been an incorporated company).
Finally, lots of you asked for it. Heck, back in 2021, we had a lovely conversation with Jeremy at Red Means Recording and he asked us about pedals even then. We love to meet customers where they are and provide the tools they want and need, and pedals seemed like a really clear way to do that.
Dystorpia has been a blast to work on, and so incredibly educational for all of us here. Get yours now, and go forth and distort!
To see the full Dystorpia manual, go to https://manuals.noiseengineering.us/dystorpia
For more information on Noise Engineering and our products visit www.noiseengineering.us
